8:57 pm - Fri 1.27.2012
Hope Springs Eternal...In the Long Run

(Watching the series finale of Chuck...)

Well, tomorrow's date has changed - from dinner at Palermo, then Albert Nobbs at the Los Feliz 3, to having something at Milk, then Bringing Up Baby at the New Beverly.

(I hadn't been too enthused about Albert Nobbs, and the day after I wrote my last journal entry - to that effect - I got an email from Patti saying that she'd checked a couple reviews of Albert Nobbs - which weren't promising - and suggested Bringing Up Baby as an alternative. If I didn't know better, I'd have sworn she read my entry...but checking reviews to make sure the movie she suggested wasn't a dud is certainly the kind of thing I would do, so I'm taking her at her word.)

Anyway, should be fun.

Another change since I last wrote - I was a little down, because I assumed I hadn't gotten callbacks on either of my last two commercial auditions...but I got word late this afternoon that I have a callback for Comcast on Monday!

So the hope of booking a gig before the month's over is still alive...

Thought I was going to see a movie with Howard this afternoon, but I bailed; I don't like doing that, because I know I would be disappointed if I planned on seeing a movie with him and he bailed.

But on the other hand, he goes to see movies by himself all the time - I'm a movie fan, but Howard is obsessed with movies - so I know he can readily "soldier on" without me.

I was thinking about auditions earlier today.

Years ago, the casting person at a workshop I attended said the best thing to do with auditions was "to go in feeling positive, do your best, then leave...and forget you were ever there".

The first two parts of that advice seem self-explanatory, but "forget you were ever there" maybe not so much.

Basically, it's a sanity-saving measure - you can make yourself crazy hashing over auditions, beating yourself up for what you imagine you did wrong, waiting by the phone for the call that (more often than not) never comes, etc.

I still can't do it. The best I can manage is to, after a few days, "let myself off the hook" by assuming it didn't happen, and looking forward to the next audition.

The phrase "Hope springs eternal" springs to mind here.

I think the state-of-mind that casting person described is something to work towards. I do think it's the healthiest thing you can do, on an audition-by-audition basis.

But in the long term, I think hope has to "spring eternal" - You can't let all your hopes hang on a single audition, but you have to believe that good things are going to happen, that things are going to get better, and that you're going to be one of the relative handful of actors that "make it".

Otherwise, why bother?

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